Why an Airplane Can Still Fly With Engine Failure

The gentle force of lifting off into the sky, pushing you slightly and reassuringly back into your seat, is one of the unique sensations that comes with air travel. Your plane climbs up and up, until finally you've passed 10,000 feet and the clouds lay below. Then there's a shudder, and a subtle deceleration. The pilot comes on the PA system, calmly, to announce that they've had to shut down an engine. But what does this actually mean?

First, it means to stay calm and listen to the crew; it does not mean that your plane is toast and it's time to panic. An engine may need to be shut down during flight for a few reasons, ranging from ingestion of material (birds, volcanic ash, hail) to a system malfunction. According to Ken Hoke, a Boeing 757/767 captain and author of aviation explainer site AeroSavvy.com, in the case of a "flame-out," the engine “stops getting fuel and slowly, smoothly spools down.” Hoke tells Condé Nast Traveler that “passengers engrossed in a good book may not even notice,” although up front the crew will be working to “slow the aircraft and descend to a lower altitude as they troubleshoot the problem.”

Because they are so extremely rare, incidences of engine failure make sensational headlines.

Jet airliners are equipped with at least two extraordinarily powerful engines, and the ability for them to safely operate with only one, even through take off, one of the most critical portions of the flight, is mandated by authorities like the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the U.S. If you’re traveling on an airplane, then both the plane itself and and its pilots will have passed this test with flying colors (pardon the pun). Nonetheless, with only one engine, the plane’s range is reduced and the odds are good that it’ll divert to the nearest airport, versus risking continuing on with a limp. “Landing with one engine inoperative is very similar to a normal landing,” says Hoke. “In fact, many modern airliners can even auto-land with one engine shut down. The biggest difference passengers will notice is emergency personnel standing by as a precaution.”

Because they are so extremely rare, incidences of engine failure make sensational headlines, sometimes for years after they've happened. Take the dramatic case of Qantas flight 32 which, in November 2010, suffered a catastrophic engine failure and fire after taking off from Singapore en route to Sydney. Although only one of the Airbus A380’s four engines failed, shrapnel from it damaged the wing and fuel system, affecting two more engines. This happened only four minutes into the flight, and yet with the flight crew working to address more than 50 warning indicators while preparing for an emergency landing, the plane stayed airborne on one appropriately functioning engine for an hour and 45 minutes before safely landing. Of the 469 people onboard the double-decker plane, zero were injured. The incident itself lasted less than two hours, but the resulting stock market hits, legal suits, and a two-and-a-half year investigation kept it in the collective consciousness for much longer.

It’s not fun to think about, but even in the case of total engine failure a plane will not simply drop out of the sky. The movement of air over the wings is enough to allow the airplane to glide, with a safe and gradual descent to landing. US Airways flight 1549, better known as the “Miracle on the Hudson," may have landed on the Hudson River since it was still very low after take-off, but losing both its engines to bird strikes didn’t doom the airliner, and gliding gave the crew enough time to plan a resolution that ended up saving everyone on board. Another example is Air Transat Flight 236, an Airbus A330 traveling from Toronto to Lisbon in 2001 that lost all engines due to improper maintenance. It traveled without power for nearly 20 minutes before landing safely in the Azores without casualties.

“In most engine failure situations, passengers experience no worse than a delay in their travel plans," says Captain Hoke. And that's one delay you surely won't mind.